


Syrian skies on Italian countryside.

by Chysack



Series: every tear in the sky will die [3]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Bleeding Effect, Character Study, Gen, I just really needed to let of some steam, Introspection, Monteriggioni, Sorry Desmond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:21:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26183356
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chysack/pseuds/Chysack
Summary: He is getting used to the sky.
Series: every tear in the sky will die [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017274
Comments: 2
Kudos: 47





	Syrian skies on Italian countryside.

It is, at first, the strangest feeling. 

It's the sky, undone and pieced back together above him.

Every star has been moved delicately, with precision and care.

It is the strangest feeling, this Syrian sky sprawling above Monteriggioni.

On the roof of the villa, he watches them all: they burn brighter, stronger here. He thinks he must be on the road between Masyaf and another city; there is not much light pollution at all, here. He could count them. He doesn't.

Desmond is pretty sure the Animus never got the sky right, not anymore than it got the people right.

In truth, the Animus didn't get a lot of things right.

Just enough.

He gets used to the skies. Sometimes he tries to figure out where he is, this time. When he is. It's nice, to see the sky of old-Monteriggioni above future-Monteriggioni (he can't feel like this is his present anymore, not when he cries and laugh in a time long past).

He has a routine, now, when he can live in his body. Like his life, it is centered around the Animus. It is - _ waking up and eating quick and going under and emerging when it is night and checking those emails that are never addressed to him and longing for Ezio's bright skies and warm companions and going outside to long for Ezio's town and Altaïr's freedom and going back too soon and sleeping someone else's dreams _ \- supposed to help him stay centered on himself. Lucy said so.

(He looks at the red tracks going to and fro their hideout and can't decide that they aren't the tracks of long dead Borgia soldiers. He keeps quiet.)

Anyone can get used to anything. Desmond knows. He got used to living in a cult when he didn't even know it wasn't supposed to be natural. He got used to living outside of it when he figured out there was an outside waiting for him. He got used to sleeping and dreaming awake in Abstergo's keep. He got used to sleeping and dreaming awake in the Brotherhood's keep. He got used to sleeping and dreaming awake and pretending he's not still dreaming when half of what he sees isn't real anymore.

He gets used to what was, at first, the strangest feeling. To the sky shifting as he moves. To people talking around him when he is alone. To people talking about him when they think he can't hear. To seeing loved ones he never met die or love him in turn or both.

He thinks,  _ what are you searching for now _ and  _ what happens when you find it _ and  _ I don't remember what you expected of me at first _ and he doesn't know to whom he is thinking those thoughts.

He thinks of Lucy, of Shaun, of Rebecca. He thinks of his sister, of his mother, of Machiavelli, La Volpe, Bartolomeo.

He thinks of everyone counting on him to keep the brotherhood growing in Italia. Sometimes he remembers that those aren't the right scales, the right times. Sometimes.

He thinks about the heat death of the universe, and he thinks  _ is anyone alive anymore? _ And-

When Lucy's blood covers his hands he thinks  _ of course  _ and  _ this is not my body anymore _ and  _ I refuse for those to be my hands _ and when he learns who she was, what she did, he thinks  _ Will I ever get used to the taste of betrayal like I got used to the state of the sky? _

He thinks. There isn't a lot more for him to do anymore.


End file.
